diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 40877aa581..aa8e74871e 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -557,7 +557,10 @@ else()
 		-Wmissing-declarations
 		#
 		# A bunch of "that might not work on SPARC" code blocks
-		# this one for now.
+		# this one for now; some of it is code that *will* work
+		# on SPARC, such as casts of "struct sockaddr *" to
+		# "struct sockaddr_in *", which are required by some
+		# APIs such as getifaddrs().
 		#
 		-Wcast-align
 		#
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 6e4f8aafa7..f89a8c04df 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -727,7 +727,10 @@ AC_ARG_ENABLE(extra-compiler-warnings,
 		AC_WIRESHARK_COMPILER_FLAGS_CHECK(-Wmissing-declarations)
 		#
 		# A bunch of "that might not work on SPARC" code blocks
-		# this one for now.
+		# this one for now; some of it is code that *will* work
+		# on SPARC, such as casts of "struct sockaddr *" to
+		# "struct sockaddr_in *", which are required by some
+		# APIs such as getifaddrs().
 		#
 		AC_WIRESHARK_COMPILER_FLAGS_CHECK(-Wcast-align)
 		#